


The Ligue

by badjokes



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Disorder, Dark, Depression, F/M, Gen, Hockey, LNAH, M/M, but i'm definitely a little more bloodthirsty than some, the lnah is real and brutal and... well... honestly a lot of fun to watch, this is real you guys this is not some fantastical thing i made up, ~dark hockey~
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 11:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8399218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badjokes/pseuds/badjokes
Summary: After everything goes south, after the draft, after the hospital and rehab and hiding in his parents’ house wishing he were just fucking dead… After all that. After coaching pewee and realizing that he wants, no, needs to be playing hockey again…Jack looks at his options.//THIS BITCH?!?!? ABANDONED.//





	1. They'd Take Me (2010)

After everything goes south, after the draft, after the hospital and rehab and hiding in his parents' house wishing he were just fucking dead... After all that. After coaching peewee and realizing that he wants, no, _needs_ to be playing hockey again...

Jack looks at his options. He and Bob sit down at the big, wooden dining room table and lay it all out. He could try to work his way back up to the show but he'd need to prove himself first. NCAA was off the table after the Q. Jack voices his doubts about the QMJHL taking him back if anyone were to go digging into the reasons for him quietly withdrawing from the draft. His father agrees and brings up the Kontinental. Jack shudders. He can't think of a worse place for him to be after all... All that. 

They still haven't figured it out when, a few days later, the first headline hits TSN.

_**JACK ZIMMERMANN, SON OF BOB ZIMMERMANN, WITHDREW FROM DRAFT DUE TO OPIATE ADDICTION. NEW INFORMATION SURFACES.** "Finally some answers," C. Nelson, GM of Seattle Schooners, quoted as saying. _

Jack is numb but he supposes that, if he weren't, this would shake him. _It wasn't even opiates_ , he thinks, listlessly. As it stands, he feels nothing. 

Bob, however, is furious. He stomps around the house, picking up objects at random only to set them down hard. Each bang echoes. Jack thinks he can feel the vibrations in his bones. 

Alicia is desperately optimistic. She gives Jack a watery smile and pulls him into a shaky hug. "Oh, my little. I love you so much. This will... This will all turn out okay." She wraps her arms around him and strokes his hair and Jack stares over her left shoulder at a spot of water damage on the wall. He thinks, _Was that stain always there?_ And then the thought slips away from him as so many do.

That night at dinner, which Alicia spent a long time making and no one is eating, Bob cracks. He'd mostly left Jack alone after the alert had sounded on both of their phones and the headline had popped up, unavoidable, on the home screen. But now he cracks and Jack watches in fascination as his father buries his face in his hands at the other end of the dining room table. 

"It's not fair," Bob mutters into his palms, hair sweeping dangerously close to the roasted vegetables on his plate. "Those bastards. It's not _fair_."

"Bob," Alicia cautions, eyes flicking between Jack and his father quickly. "Sweetheart, don't—"

Bob slams his hand down on the table and everyone's dishes rattle. Jack watches idly as a single roasted carrot jolts its way off his plate and rolls over the edge of the table.

"You try so hard, Jackie. You try so fucking hard. And this is what they give you? This is the way they treat—"

_"Bob,"_ Alicia hisses. "Stop. Stop this _now."_

"You're _tough,_ " Bob continues, talking over Alicia. "You're tougher than any of them. You think any of those little fucks sweating their balls off in the AHL could take half the shit you put up with? You think any of those assholes who pulled a sweater over their suit could handle what you do? The Schooners' PR can't even imagine... And you've been dealing with this since you were a kid. Goddammit, Jackie, you're tougher than any enforcer out there. Hell, I'll bet you're tougher than most of the guys in the LNAH."

Jack can almost feel the blood rushing from wherever it's been sluggishly pumping and roar through his ears. He could swear that his vision gets sharper and the dry, scratchy feeling that's been hanging over him vanishes. There is something churning in his stomach. He is on fire. He is burning.

"What'd you say?"

His father looks up, startled. A little sheepish. "Uh... I said you're tough. Jackie, I—"

"No. The last part. What did you say?"

His father's face pales. Jack can see his knuckles whiten from across the table. Alicia looks between them, head twitching back and forth. Bob chokes, an ugly sound. Almost a sob.

"I said," he grits out, voice wrecked. He clears his throat. "I said, _I'll bet you're tougher than most of the guys in the LNAH."_

And Jack smiles for the first time in months. It's a tiny thing, hard and stale and mostly tasteless, but it's there. He smiles and looks his father in the eyes.

"The LNAH."

Bob shakes his head, face still pale. "No, Jackie. C'mon. You know that's not the place—"

"They'd take me. You know they would."

Bob stares at Jack, who nods decisively and pushes back from the table, leaving behind his untouched dinner. "I'll go print out the paperwork now and send an email to Jean. I'll call him tomorrow, I guess. He's still my agent, right?"

"Yes," Bob says, very quietly. Still sitting at the other end of the table. 

"Alright then. Better go get started. Goodnight, Maman. Papa. Talk to you in the morning."

And Jack turns on his heel and leaves the dining room.


	2. Hey, You Fuckin' Putz (2017)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a casual seven year jump. You know. No big thing.
> 
> This chapter's got some familiar faces that you might not have been expecting to show up. That's okay. They didn't think they'd be part of this story either. Welcome to Montreal, guys.
> 
> Also, for those who are squeamish about, y'know... Fighting. Yeah. This might not be the story for you.

They haul the last box up from the car a little after nine at night, groaning and shit talking each other up the four flights of stairs. It’s hot out and they’re both soaked by the time they stack the box on the pile they’ve got balanced in the middle of what will be their living room.

“Last one,” Holster says, smiling. He’s got his hands on his hips and his face is the color of a tomato, grey shirt patchy with sweat. His glasses are crooked.

If Justin didn’t already know he was in love, well. He’d fuckin’ know  _ now. _

“That’s it, man. We did it. Now we just gotta… Unpack it all.” Holster moans, a loud, drawn-out thing, and collapses in slow motion to the hardwood floor.

Justin snorts as his boyfriend curls into a ball and continues to moan. “You sound like a dying cow, Holtzy.”

“At least a cow wouldn’t know what was coming,” wails the six foot four inch ball of man on the ground, “But I know my fate, man.”

Justin laughs and kicks at Holster lightly. “Oh my god, you fuckin’ theatre queer. Get your drama queen ass up and help me pick out some food.”

They bicker over takeout for a while before getting to work slicing open boxes and organizing piles of stuff throughout the apartment. Eventually the delivery girl arrives and Justin tips her. She thanks him in French and Holster grimaces. After she leaves, Justin laughs at his face.

“Don’t gimme that look, bud. You’re gonna have to learn French eventually.”

Holster shakes his head, “No fuckin way, bro. I’m gonna get a nice, English-speaking job. I’ll stick to the language I know, thanks.” He nods in the general direction of the door the delivery girl had just knocked on. “Deliver pizza or something, I guess.”

“What if a French guy orders a pizza?”

“First of all,  _ Justin,  _ he wouldn’t be French. He’d be French-Canadian. There’s a difference. Second of all—”

“What?!” Justin blurts out, fumbling his pop bottle. “That’s not—”

“ _ Second of all _ … How hot is this hypothetical French guy?”

“Oh my god! What the fuck?”

Holster shrugs, rolling his eyes. “I’ve seen this porn before, bro. I know how this works. Some things, well.” He winks at Justin. “Some things transcend language. And everyone speaks the language of  _ love. _ ”

“What the  _ fuck!”  _ Justin is gasping for air at this point, probably looking like a damn fish. He can’t stop doing that dumb witch cackle that the guys back at Samwell had chirped him for. “You’d rather whore yourself out than learn French?”

They spread the food out on the floor and eat it straight from the cartons, unwilling to look for utensils and plates in the unopened boxes. The dull roar of Montreal echoes outside their fourth floor window.

———————————

Weeks go by and suddenly Ransom is neck deep in hospital shifts and Adam is, as predicted, doing his time as a pizza guy with an economics degree.

It’s his day off but Ransom’s still at school. He looks around their tiny apartment. They’d been so excited when they’d driven up after graduating and signed the lease, so pumped to be real adults. But the novelty has faded. Ransom’s anxiety is acting up again and Adam’s shitty pizza job is not paying the bills like he’d hoped it would. He’d expected to get a job in the financial sector but apparently he’d been too busy playing hockey and hadn’t spent enough time networking and now…

He’s not sure how much longer they’re gonna let him keep his work visa with just a pizza delivery job.

Adam sighs and pushes himself off the couch, grabs his skate bag and stick and heads out the door. He’s always thought better on the ice. Might as well take advantage of the local rink.

An hour later, he’s doing some edgework in the middle of the ice, letting his stick glide along behind him as his thoughts bounce around in his head. He’s not sure what conclusion he’s hoping to reach… Nothing’s even that bad. Yet he can’t help but think he should be doing  _ more. _

And then, still turning his thoughts over, Adam is no longer skating. He is, in fact, sitting on his ass in the middle of the rink. Because the asshole standing over him, with a shit-eating grin on his scarred-up face, had just fuckin’ _ checked him. _

“What the fuck, man? What the hell was that for?”

The guy laughs and spits something in French that Adam’s one hundred percent sure is not a compliment. And honestly? It’s been a weird day. His head has been somewhere other than above his shoulders for hours now. If things had gone his way, he would have skated it off and gone home, put on an episode of Parks and Rec and made some dinner for him and Rans.

But that’s not what happened. He’d been checked by some fuckin’ rando and now all Adam can hear is someone cursing him out in French and his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. And it’s enough. It’s more than enough. He can feel his heart pounding, feel himself gulping for air.  _ Adrenaline, _ he thinks mildly.  _ That’s what Rans says it is. _

It feels good.

And, just as suddenly as he was shoved to the ice, he’s up and swinging, landing a good one on Frenchie’s jaw and following it up with a left hook that the guy manages to dodge. Adam can feel his whole body throbbing in anticipation.

The guy smiles even bigger and comes at him and Adam’s so fucking done with this day. They’re grappling before long, wrestling for the headlock that Adam eventually gets the other guy in, whaling on him one, two, six times in quick succession. Frenchie manages to knock him hard in the kidney and wriggle out of his arms, gliding backwards and putting his hands up.

“Hey, you fuckin’ putz. You’re not so big, my guy. You really wanna do this?” Adam calls, sliding gracefully into his easy southpaw. Muscle memory.  _ Thank god. _

Frenchie just yells back some more sharp nonsense as they circle and then they’re lunging, gunning for each other. Frenchie manages to sock Adam in the cheekbone and bright stars flash before his eyes.  _ All right, _ he thinks, blinking rapidly.  _ Time to end this. _

He lashes out blindly and can feel the butt of his fist, thrown out in a hammer blow, connect with flesh. There’s a meaty thwack and he aims his left jab in the direction of the noise, throwing his weight behind it. It connects as his vision clears up and he watches the ice come up to meet him as he and Frenchie tip over.

Adam can hear himself shouting but he has no idea what the hell he’s saying. He brings his knee up fast and slams it into the guy’s upper thigh. Didn’t quite reach his nuts but not every hit’s gonna be a winner. Even with the miss, Frenchie groans and loosens his hold on Adam, enough to allow him to sit up and get the leverage needed to bash the fucker in the face. He catches the guy’s nose and Adam can feel it just…  _ Flex _ with his hand. Move the same direction as his punch with almost no resistance.

The sound of cartilage cracking echoes throughout the rink which, though there were a few figure skaters and parents here before, is now almost empty.

Adam pushes off the ice and straddles Frenchie, who’s moaning and squirming. Blood’s streaming down his face and mixing with the shaved snow on the ice, turning everything a pepto-bismol pink.  “Stay down, asshole. Don’t fuckin’ struggle.”

From behind him, bouncing off the metal walls and rows of seats, Adam hears clapping. He turns to look for the source and Frenchie makes one last effort to hit him. Adam turns back quickly and cold-clocks him. Frenchie goes still.

The clapping stops. And then it starts up again but doubled this time. Adam turns around.

There are two guys leaning over the boards. One’s big. Really big. Physique of a boxer. Adam can see some ink splashed over his knuckles but can’t make out what it says. The other one, an older guy, is pretty big but fat. They smile at him and the old guy yells at him. In French.

“Hey, guys. If I don’t have to deal with any more French shit today, that would be fuckin’ great, okay?”

The old fat dude looks to the big guy who mutters something to him and turns back to Adam. “He was telling you that was a good fight. Congratulations. Henri doesn’t usually go down that easy.”

Adam struggles to his feet, grabs his stick from where he dropped it, and pushes off towards the guys in a lazy glide. Now that the fight is over, he can feel his face, hot and throbbing. _ Goodbye adrenaline.  _ “You know that schmuck?”

“Yes. That’s Henri. He’s on the team.”

Adam’s head is spinning and his face hurts and he’s pretty sure one of his knuckles is about halfway up the back of his hand. And he’s still mad as hell. He skates right up to the boards and grabs the big guy by the collar of his jacket. “Explain. Now.”

The old guy is laughing so Adam snakes out a hand and grabs him too. He sucks in a breath as he does. Hand. Definitely broken. “What are you laughing about, you old shit? Something funny?”

He responds and, of course, it’s in French.

Adam shakes the big guy, who’s also kind of chuckling at his antics. “Translate, fucker.”

“He says he likes your spirit. You’re natural fighter. And your skating was good. Can you handle a puck?”

Adam’s starting to feel a little less like forty-four nails shoved into a matchbox. But he’s still confused as hell.

“Uh… Yeah, man. I guess so. Starting defence on a two-time Frozen Four winning team. But, uh… Why do you give a shit?”

The big guy starts and leans back, pulling Adam closer to the boards. “No way? NCAA, huh? Crazy.” He says something in French to the old guy. The old guy lights up and nods. Smiling and nodding at Adam, at the big guy. Fuckin’ hell, he’s even nodding at Henri, back there on center ice, shakily pushing himself to his feet.

“Well, that settles it,” Big Guy grins. “Felix and me, we want to offer you the chance to skate with the Prédateurs and see how it goes.”

“The who?”

Big Guy doesn’t look quite as thrilled anymore. “The Predators.” He takes in Adam’s blank expression. “Laval Predators. The LNAH team.”

Adam frowns. “Oh. Right, yeah. I’d heard there was a team around here. But, like… Aren’t you guys kind of the fuck up league? I mean, uh… I mean don’t you guys have like four fights a game?”

Big Guy sighs. “The shit you hear isn’t always true—.”

Adam cuts him off before he can begin his spiel. “Uh, bro. Hate to break it to you? You literally just watched one of your team members jump me for no fucking reason. I am failing to see how your reputation hasn’t been… You know.  _ Earned.” _

Henri groans behind Adam and he turns to watch the poor guy slink off the other side of the ice and head to the locker rooms, clutching his nose. When he turns back towards Big Guy and Felix, he catches the tail-end of Big Guy’s grimace. “Yeah. Henri’s… Well. We’re talking about scratching him for the first part of the season and he’s been trying to prove himself ever since. Picking fights with every guy in skates over six feet.. He, uh. Well. It doesn’t do much to impress us but he hasn’t lost a fight yet.”

Adam scoffs. “That guy? Five foot ten over there? How many fights can he have been in.”

Big Guy shrugs and smirks at Adam. “He had twenty-eight last season and he’s gotten into it with about seven guys this summer.”

Adam stares. “You’re shitting me.”

Big Guy chuckles. “I’m not.” He sticks out his hand toward Adam. “Liam Gagnon, by the way. Head coach.”

Adam grasps his hand and almost rolls his eyes when Liam immediately clamps down hard. Adam squeezes right back. _ Boy, if only this guy had to sit through multiple years of Shitty’s lectures on performative masculinity… _ “Adam Birkholtz. Call me Holster.”

“So, Birkholtz. What do you say? Want to come up to Laval and skate with us?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I chose the Prédateurs because Laval is closest to Montreal, where McGill (the school Ransom is attending) is located. A little digging turned up a pretty okay VICE mini-doc on the Preds. If you wanna check it out, it's [right over here.](https://sports.vice.com/ca/video/drop-the-gloves-canadas-toughest-hockey-league)
> 
> Hope you guys are okay with the sudden jump in time and characters in this story. This thing is gonna be a wild ride. It's very possible that we might take a trip down memory lane next time for some insight into how Jack's been doing for the better part of the last decade.
> 
> Appreciate you guys giving this thing a read. Hope you're all having a good day. 
> 
> Go Bruins.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who don't know, the LNAH (Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey) is one of the most disreputable and violent hockey leagues out there. They're infamous for employing real fuckin' fighty guys who are truly just there to drop their gloves. For a long-ass time, they didn't play... _Good_ hockey. It was just a shit ton of fights. Like a morally and legally grey underground fighting ring. On ice. 
> 
> Recently they've been trying to cut down on fighting and employ better players but, even now, the LNAH averages over five times the fights that an average NHL game boasts. Plus it's, y'know. In Québec. So if you can picture gruff Quebeckers in the stands, baying for blood... You see where I'm going with this?
> 
> Also, forgive me for this dark fuckin' story. I love experiencing pain and suffering and I also love inflicting that pain and suffering on others. I honestly just wanted to cry over the idea of a horribly depressed Jack getting beat to shit in the LNAH because he feels like he doesn't have any other options.


End file.
